Meetings are the worst form of productivity. The “doing” gets done outside of meetings. Doing happens when you have time to think.

Doers schedule thinking.

As Jason Fried once said, meetings should be like salt on a meal.

Focus and scattterfocus is all that matters.

Time and attention aren’t the same thing. They're barely related.

Forget about time management.

Productivity is not at all about having planners.

How we make decisions:

We like to think we make complicated decisions based on rational analysis, but most of the time, we actually make an emotional decision and then invent a rational analysis to justify it.

Much time management and getting things done is not about time: it's about scale.

This caught my attention:

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that, sometimes, attention can mislead us about the world. This is not to say that attention always distorts our knowledge of the world, but it does suggest that it might not be the unproblematic guide to knowledge that we originally thought.

Investing advice:

A recommended daily habit: Replace one hour of screen time with one hour of reading in your job's subject area.

Slow down!

An easy trick to slow down is to ask: “Why the rush?” and to take a step back. Is speed really adding to the quality of the output?

What do you do when all of your inboxes are empty or ignored? That’s your purpose in life.

What activities act as a magnet for your attention? Which of today’s actions will you dream about? What makes you truely happy?

You can find breadcrumbs to your purpose in many corners of life.

Effectiveness:

The flip-side of the "To-Do" list should always be the "Not To-Do" list. 

I’m loving this quote:

Develop what’s inside first, because what’s inside is reflected outside.

What we believe in.

Efficiency is getting stuff done.

Effectiveness is getting the right stuff done.

Technology aids us with the first.

Your brain still has to facilitate the second.

An interesting metric to evaluate email campaigns: Risk

We measure email risk, in its most basic iteration, by dividing the number of unsubscribes by the number of clicks for each individual email campaign.

Total Number of Opt-Outs / Unique Clicks = Risk

This is the most basic and broadly applicable version of this metric but, in a few moments, we’ll discuss ways you can tailor it to fit your specific program.

Some interesting insights into the consequences of the jump to “remote work” in many organizations:

With over 40 percent of the global workforce considering leaving their employer this year, a thoughtful approach to hybrid work will be critical for attracting and retaining diverse talent. To help organizations through the transition, the 2021 Work Trend Index outlines findings from a study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries and an analysis of trillions of productivity and labor signals across Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn. It also includes perspectives from experts who have spent decades studying collaboration, social capital, and space design at work for decades.

This is how you buy things.

Did I comparison shop? Nope. Ask around? Nada.
There's no buyer's remorse when you just don't want to know.

The best way to deal with information overload is to embrace it.

Think of Information as Food.

Imagine you’re at a 5 Star buffet, with loads of options. It’s stressful if you think you have to consume it all. But it’s liberating if you know what you want to eat so that you can find the right balance of taste and nutrients to create your meal.

What we’re doing is not the same as working remotely.

We’re not working remotely. We’re surviving a global pandemic while trying to get some work done.

This is outrageous!

A database containing the phone numbers of more than half a billion Facebook users is being freely traded online, and Facebook is trying to pin the blame on everyone but themselves.

After many years in the productivity space, I still have to remind myself sometimes that the tool won’t solve my issues.

There’s no getting out of this fact: these apps are all going to take more constant input from you than you’d wish for. They don’t take away the need for some amount of self-discipline to use them effectively.

So true:

These huge threaded tweets drive me insane.

It sounds really interesting but hard to read, impossible to follow and can disappear at any point.

Write a bloody blog post!

The real issue is that the author is more interested in getting likes and retweets than in being read and understood.

Llevo muchos años explicando que, antes de comunicarte, siempre debes parar un momento para seleccionar el mejor canal de comunicación para este mensaje. Y Zoom, correo electrónico o WhatsApp rara vez son el canal óptimo.

A medida que este tipo de elementos culturales se van normalizando, sigue persistiendo una tendencia al exceso de uso de la videoconferencia para cuestiones que, seguramente, podrían solucionarse de manera mucho más sencilla y directa con una simple llamada de teléfono. De hecho, un estudio llevado a cabo en Carnegie Mellon viene a certificar que las videoconferencias generan una falta de sincronía y una disminución de la inteligencia colectiva frente a otros medios de comunicación más sencillos como el teléfono.

A small jewel from James Clear’s newsletter:

When people hesitate to give honest feedback on an idea, draft, or performance, I ask for a 0-10 score.
No one ever says 10. Then I ask how I can get closer to a 10.
It motivates them to start coaching me—and motivates me to be coachable. I want to learn how to close the gap.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Some useful Dutch words:

“Mierenneuken” Literally translated as: “ant fucking.” This should be a common term in productivity. Nitpicking things that don’t matter, especially within projects that should not exist, is a daily frustration.

Is there something missing on your to do list?

Looking back, there was one chore that I should have put on every list and saved time for every day.

That missing item was "Thinking."